


Did we Kidnap a Deer?

by equineaurora



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Random - Freeform, The Marauders - Freeform, silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 14:35:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7805614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equineaurora/pseuds/equineaurora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a night out in the Forbidden Forest the Marauders mistake a real deer for James and take it back to the castle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Did we Kidnap a Deer?

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there! So I took a break from Miraculous Ladybug to revisit an old favorite, Harry Potter. 
> 
> This ficlet is about the generation before Harry, specifically The Marauders, and is based off this tumblr post http://equine-aurora.tumblr.com/post/149064640287/marauders4evr-people-always-joke-about-the
> 
> Thanks a bunch to fanficismything for being my amazing beta and putting up with my grammar issues. <3
> 
> I do not own the Harry Potter universe or any of it's characters. Our amazing queen, J.K. Rowling of course owns the rights to the Harry Potter Universe. I just play around with what she created a little bit. So enjoy. :)

The half moon shone over the lake as four boys make their way towards the Forbidden Forest, keeping a lookout for teachers. As sixth years they were too big for all four of them to fit under the invisibility cloak, but James Potter still had it in the school bag slung over his shoulder. They make it to a clearing in the Forbidden Forest without incident and Sirius Black points his wand at one of the boulders. “ _ Wingardium Leviosa”  _ he murmurs with a swiss and a flick, levitating the boulder off the ground so the others could hide their bags in the hole hidden beneath it. Once everything is inside he lowers the boulder back to the ground before looking at his three best friends. 

James is grinning at him, his messy black hair sticking out all over the place. “So like we discussed, we’ll explore more of the forbidden forest as our animal selves. Moony, you’ll go with Wormtail so he doesn’t get eaten. Padfoot and I should be fine, just make sure to stay away from the Acromantula nest. We don’t want a repeat of last time.” He gives Sirius a pointed look.

“Not a problem. I don’t want to be doggy stew,” Sirius replies with a shudder.

“Meet back here in two hours,” James says with a smirk before transforming into his deer form.

He nudges Sirius with his antlers and Sirius smacks him on the nose. “Stop that Prongs. Go scratch on a tree.” he teases his friend. James just nibbles on Sirius’ hair instead while Peter and Remus laugh at their antics. Sirius just shakes his head at James and soon a large black dog is standing where Sirius just was. James lowers his head and the two touch noses before James turns and bounds off into the woods. Sirius watches him go for a moment before turning to the other two in the clearing and giving Peter a look that even on his dog face clearly means “What are you waiting for?”

Peter sees the look at sighs. “Alright, alright,” he says before a rat is where Peter just was.

“Don’t worry, I’ll watch over him Padfoot. See you later,” Remus says bending over to pick up Peter and set him on his shoulder before heading down a path away from where James had gone and very clearly away from the Acromantula nest.

Finally satisfied Sirius turns and bounds off down another path.

Over an hour later, Sirius was following the trail of a unicorn by scent when a stag appears out of the nearby trees and walks right over to the black dog. Sirius wags his tail and opens his mouth in a doggy grin as the stag walks right up to him and nudges him. Sirius nuzzles the stag before continuing down the path, eager to find a unicorn and the stag follows him. Sirius finally sees the unicorn he’s following through the trees and just stops to watch it for a bit, amazed at how close he got. He looks back at the stag and gestures with his head for James to come see but the stag just stands there watching him so Sirius just shrugs and keeps watching for a bit before the stag comes over and nudges him again. “ _ Okay, Okay Prongs. I’m going,”  _ Sirius thinks, standing up and heading back to their meeting place, following the scents to get there and again the stag just follows.

Once they get back to the meeting place Sirius changes back and sits on the rock to wait for Peter and Remus, but the stag just starts eating grass.

“Prongs mate, you’re getting a little too into the deer thing dude. Just change back already,” says an amused Sirius, but the stag ignores him and keeps eating.

About ten minutes later, Remus and Peter come back, Peter already back in human form and looking super nervous as he basically hides behind Remus as they walk. Remus looks at the stag grazing, then at Sirius questionably.

“I’m not sure,” Sirius answers the silent question with a shrug. “He found me out in the woods and just followed me around for a bit, then started grazing when we got here. I’ve never seen him eat grass before and he’s ignoring me now and refusing to change back.”

Remus approaches the stag, “Prongs?” he scrutinizes, looking over the stag for any sign that maybe it’s not James but not finding any. “James?” he tries again when the stag ignores him as well. The stag does actually look up at him and nudges him as well.

“Why isn’t he changing back?” inquires Peter from his spot besides Sirius.

“Maybe he’s stuck?” Sirius says concerned, also approaching the stag. “I mean we’ve been animagus for almost a year and we’ve never gotten stuck before, but maybe something went wrong this time? Maybe we should try and get him back to the castle to figure this out?”

Remus rests a hand on the stags back, if it wasn’t James this deer sure was people friendly. “Sure, cover him with the invisibility cloak,” he says with a sigh. “ _ Why was it James that got stuck? Why not Peter?”  _ he thinks as Sirius lifts the rock again and Peter gets the bags out.

Soon, the front half of the deer was covered with the cloak and as they reach the edge of the woods, the stag plants his hooves and refuses to go any further. “Now what?” Peter asks, looking at the stubborn stag.

“Prongs come on. We’re going to fix this but you need to come with us first,” Sirius says, shoving on the stag’s rear end while Remus and Peter pull on the front half. It takes a lot of effort from the three boys but they finally get the reluctant deer into the castle.

As they wrestle the half invisible deer past Mcgonagall’s office she happens to look up. She raises an eyebrow but decides to leave the boys be for now. Afterall, she’d already given them three detentions that week so she just went back to grading essays. “ _ I’m getting too old for this,” s _ he thinks with a sigh.

Getting the stag up the stairs was the really tricky part and finally Sirius just goes, “That’s it,” and points his wand at the stag. He gives his wand a little swish and flick and says, “ _ Wingardium Leviosa.”  _ Soon Remus joins him and the two of them levitate a stag through the castle all the way to the Gryffindor common room without getting caught, they’re still not sure how they managed to pull that off.

Once inside the common room, they pulled the invisibility cloak off and studied the stag closely. It certainly looks like James, but maybe it’s just a normal, human friendly, deer. The ‘maybe James Potter’ stag wanders over to the Marauders corner of the Common Room and just lays down. Sirius walks over to him and sits down in front of the deer. “Are you James Potter?” he asks seriously.

The deer sort of nods his head, but it could just be a coincidence so Sirius tries again. “Are you stuck as a stag?” he asks the deer.

Again, the deer sort of nods his head and Sirius growls in frustration. “I can’t tell if it’s just the deer moving his head or James answering the questions! How about this one. Who is your best mate?” he inquires, looking the stag straight in the eyes.

The stag nudges Sirius and he grins. “Of course I am mate. So uh… how do we fix this?” he asks, looking over at Remus.

“Maybe we should ask Professor McGonagall if it’s possible for an animagus to get stuck?” he asks reluctantly because he honestly has no clue.

“We can’t do that! We’re not registered! We’d get in so much trouble! No, we figured out how to do the transformation on our own, we’ll figure out how to fix James on our own. In the meantime we hide him in the dorm and tell people he’s sick.” Sirius argues.

“Alright, but if we haven’t figured it out in a week we ask for help. I’d rather not have James get stuck forever,” Remus reluctantly agrees to the plan.

They manage to get the stag up and into their dorm and soon the stag is sleeping on the floor by James’ bed and the other three Marauders just flop into their respective beds, exhausted after fighting a deer all the way to their room.

Several hours later, the real James Potter had finally made it back to the meeting spot. He figures the others were worried sick about him after he got stuck with the centaur herd between him and where he needed to go to get back. It had taken him awhile to find a way to get past them, but he finally had and now he was shocked to find the clearing empty. He changes back and levitates the boulder only to find all the bags gone. “ _ They just went back without me?”  _ With a sigh, he starts walking back to the castle. He has to use some secret passages to avoid teachers, but he finally makes it back to his room around sunrise. He gives The Fat Lady the password then heads up to his dorm room, and shouts in surprise at the stag sleeping at the foot of his bed.

The three sleeping boys are jolted awake by the shout as is the deer who jumps up and starts running around breaking things. Sirius leaps out of bed, wand at the ready till he realizes it’s his best mate standing there. “James!?” he gasps before muttering “ _ Lumos,”  _ and his wand tip lights up putting some light onto the situation.

“Padfoot, why on earth is there a STAG in our ROOM!?” The very confused James asks.

“Well Prongs… we might have thought that was you,” Remus says, trying not to laugh.

“Well now it’s destroying our room!” James points out.

“ _ IMMOBULUS!”  _ Sirius shouts, pointing at the deer and the deer stops moving. “There,” he says.

“We’ve probably woken up the whole house by now,” Remus points out as footsteps can be heard outside.

James just shakes his head and goes outside to rectify the situation. “Nothing to worry about, Sirius just pranked me good. Go back to bed you guys,” James says to the crowded common room before going back inside his dorm room. “So what are we going to too with the ‘clearly not me’ deer!?” James asks, amused by the situation but pretending to be upset.

“Adopt him?” Sirius suggests.

“Be serious now Padfoot,” Remus says sternly.

“I am Sirius, but we’re talking about the deer now. Come on Moony,” he quips.

“We could just open the door and hope he runs back to the woods?” Peter suggests.

James turns and looks at the boy and grins. “I like it,” he says, going to open the doors so the deer can get outside. “Ok free him,” he says, and soon a deer is running around Hogwarts as the teachers try and catch it to take it outside and the Marauders just watch, laughing like crazy.

The boys turn as a voice clears itself behind them. “Good morning Professor McGonagall.” James says sweetly, an innocent smile on his face.

McGonagall gives him an unamused glare. “Potter, Black, Lupin, Pettigrew. My office. NOW.” she commands, and the boys follow her with a groan.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Lot's of love to my readers. Kudos and Comments mean the world to me so if you liked this story let me know!


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